In Modern Standard Arabic, the word أليف/ʔaliːf/ literally means 'tamed' or 'familiar', derived from the root |ʔ-l-f|, from which the verb ألِف /ʔalifa/ means 'to be acquainted with; to be on intimate terms with'.[3] In modern Hebrew, the same root |ʔ-l-f| (alef-lamed-peh) gives me’ulaf, the passive participle of the verb le’alef, meaning 'trained' (when referring to pets) or 'tamed' (when referring to wild animals); the IDF rank of Aluf, taken from an Edomite title of nobility, is also cognate.[clarification needed]

The Aramaic reflex of the letter is conventionally represented with the Hebrew א in typography for convenience, but the actual graphic form varied significantly over the long history and wide geographic extent of Aramaic usage. Maraqten identifies three different aleph traditions in East Arabian coins, a lapidary Aramaic form which realizes it as a combination of a V-shape and a straight stroke attached to the apex, much like a Latin K; a cursive Aramaic form he calls the "elaborated X-form," essentially the same tradition as the Hebrew reflex; and an extremely cursive form that consists of two crossed oblique lines, much like a simple Latin X.[4]

Aleph is the subject of a midrash which praises its humility in not demanding to start the Bible. (In Hebrew the Bible begins with the second letter of the alphabet, Bet.) In this folktale, Aleph is rewarded by being allowed to start the Ten Commandments. (In Hebrew, the first word is אָנֹכִי, which starts with an aleph.)

Aleph is also the first letter of the Hebrew word emet (אֶמֶת), which means truth. In Jewish mythology it was the letter aleph that was carved into the head of the golem which ultimately gave it life.

Aleph also begins the three words that make up God's mystical name in Exodus, I Am who I Am (in Hebrew, Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh אהיה אשר אהיה), and aleph is an important part of mystical amulets and formulas.

Aleph in Jewish mysticism represents the oneness of God. The letter can be seen as being composed of an upper yud (Yodh), a lower yud, and a vav (Waw (letter)) leaning on a diagonal. The upper yud represents the hidden and ineffable aspects of God while the lower yud represents God's revelation and presence in the world. The vav ("hook") connects the two realms.

Jewish mysticism relates aleph to the element of air, the Fool (Key 0, value 1) of the major arcana of the tarot deck,[5] and the Scintillating Intelligence (#11) of the path between Kether and Chokmah in the Tree of the Sephiroth.

In the Syriac alphabet, the first letter is ܐ — Classical Syriac: ܐܵܠܲܦ — Alap (in eastern dialects) or Olaph (in western dialects). It is used in word-initial position to mark a word beginning with a vowel — although some words beginning with i or u do not need its help, and sometimes an initial Alap/Olaph is elided. For example, when the Syriac first-personsingularpronounܐܵܢܵܐ is in enclitic positions, it is pronounced no/na (again west/east) rather than the full form eno/ana. The letter occurs very regularly at the end of words, where it represents the long final vowels o/a or e. In the middle of the word, the letter represents either a glottal stop between vowels (but West Syriac pronunciation often makes this a palatal approximant), a long i/e (less commonly o/a) or is silent.

Written as ا, spelled as ألف and transliterated as alif it is the first letter in Arabic. Together with Hebrew Aleph, Greek Alpha and Latin A, it is descended from Phoenicianʾāleph, from a reconstructed Proto-Canaanite ʾalp "ox".

Alif is written in one of the following ways depending on its position in the word:

Historically, the Arabic letter was used to render either a long /aː/, or a glottal stop/ʔ/. This led to orthographical confusion, and to introduction of the additional letter hamzat qaṭ‘ﺀ. Hamzah is not considered a full letter in Arabic orthography: in most cases it appears on a carrier, either a wāw (ؤ), a dotless yā’ (ئ), or an alif. The choice of carrier depends on complicated orthographic rules. Alif إ أ is generally the carrier where the only adjacent vowel is fatḥah. It is the only possible carrier where hamzah is the first phoneme of a word. Where alif acts as a carrier for hamzah, hamzah is added above the alif, or, for initial alif-kasrah, below it, indicating that the letter so modified does indeed signify a glottal stop, and not a long vowel.

A second type of hamza, hamzat waṣl (همزة وصل), occurs only as the initial phoneme of the definite article and in some related cases. It differs from hamzat qaṭ‘ in that it is elided after a preceding vowel. Again, alif is always the carrier.

The alif maddah is, as it were, a double alif, expressing both a glottal stop and a long vowel: آ (final ـآ) ’ā/ʔaː/, for example in آخرākhir/ʔaːxir/ 'last'. "It has become standard for a hamza followed by a long ā to be written as two alifs, one vertical and one horizontal"[6] (the "horizontal" alif being the maddah sign).

The alif maqṣūrah (ألف مقصورة, 'limited/restricted alif'), commonly known in Egypt as alif layyinah (ألف لينة, 'flexible alif'), looks like a dotless yā’ى (final ـى) and may only appear at the end of a word. Although it looks different from a regular alif, it represents the same sound /aː/, often realized as a short vowel. When written, alif maqṣūrah is indistinguishable from final Persianye or Arabic yā’ as it is written in Egypt, Sudan, and sometimes other places. Alif maqsurah is transliterated as á in ALA-LC, ā in DIN 31635, à in ISO 233-2, and ỳ in ISO 233.

As a numeral, Alaph/Olaf stands for the number one. With a dot below, it is the number 1,000; with a line above it, Alaph/Olaf will represent 1,000,000. With a line below it is 10,000 and with two dots below it is 10,000,000.

The Egyptian "vulture" hieroglyph (GardinerG1), by convention pronounced [a]) is also referred to as aleph, on grounds that it has traditionally been taken to represent a glottal stop, although some recent suggestions[7] tend towards an [ɹ] sound instead.

The phoneme is commonly transliterated by a symbol composed of two half-rings, in Unicode (as of version 5.1, in the Latin Extended-D range) encoded at U+A722 ꜢLATIN CAPITAL LETTER EGYPTOLOGICAL ALEF and U+A723 ꜣLATIN SMALL LETTER EGYPTOLOGICAL ALEF. A fallback representation is the numeral 3, or the Middle English character ȝYogh; neither are to be preferred to the genuine Egyptological characters.